In 1968 and 1969 a research planning study was undertaken for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) under the auspices of their Advisory Council. The House Appropriations Committee, in their hearings on the 1976 budget requested that this report be updated and extended. The present proposal is in response to that request. This study would undertake to review the current patterns of research in environmental health, to examine national needs in respect to the protection of health from environmental agents, to consider the feasibility of achieving those national needs considering the present state of science and on these bases to recommend research needs and opportunities appropriate to a national program. Although this would include work directly under the sponsorship of the NIEHS, it would also include a broad view of national needs without regard to what institution or agency might undertake the direct sponsorship of any proposed research needs. The study would be undertaken for Advisory Council of the NIEHS under the guidance of an Executive Committee through a series of sub-task forces covering the various substantive and policy issues needed in a national research effort. The task force would be established immediately, and work undertaken at once. The body of the report would be developed at a workshop to be held in the summer of 1976, on the basis of intervening work done by the Task Force. Final editing would be completed during the autumn for presentation to the Council and to Congress not later than January, 1977.